My Money Steps asks you questions about your circumstances, income and outgoings as well as information about the types of debts you have. It uses the information you put in to give you debt advice and recommend options to help you to deal with your debt problem.

My Money Steps produces a personalised list of actions and steps for you to take and features a diary so that you can schedule in actions and steps for yourself. Once you have set up an account, you can access it as many times as you need to.

If you don’t have all of the information you need to complete a section, you can go back in at a later date as it saves your details as you go along.

Yes. My Money Steps is a recognised source of debt advice, and lenders are required to give anyone using My Money Steps the same consideration they would give to an expert debt adviser making offers on behalf of their client.

You can use My Money Steps at any time but the sooner you start the easier it will be to deal with your debt problem. If you have had debts for a while and you haven’t done anything about them, it's never too late to get debt advice and take action.

• Get online debt advice that’s available to you 24/7 at a time that suits you;

• Handle a loss of income, or change in your circumstances that has occurred or due; and

• Ease worries and stress about how you will pay all of your bills.

In some circumstances My Money Steps may recommend that you speak to an advice agency over the phone or face-to-face, especially if your debt problem has become urgent and you need some extra support to help you. If that does happen, it is important to get further debt advice but you can still use My Money Steps afterwards.

You can get further help with your debts at any stage whilst you are using My Money Steps. If you would like to speak to an adviser you can call National Debtline free on 0808 808 4000. You can also use the useful links in the resources section to find alternative advice agencies.

A free debt management plan means that you make one payment every month to cover all of your credit debts. A company will divide this money up and send it to your creditors on your behalf. You won’t have to pay for this.

My Money Steps can identify whether a free debt management plan is an option for you and tell you how to set a plan up at no cost to you. The company that provides the debt management plan will not charge you for any part of their service.

Debt consolidation involves borrowing more money to pay off existing debts. Debt consolidation can result in you having one lower monthly repayment to make each month, but it can also make your debt problems worse.

It is important to look at all of your options and get advice before you consider debt consolidation. My Money Steps will help you to do a budget plan and get some debt advice and money help to see if there are other more suitable options available to you.

Your partner is not liable for any debts in your sole name, whether you budget jointly or as individuals. If you decide to do a budget just based on your own income and outgoings, try to ensure that your contribution to household bills is fair and proportionate. It may be that you pay certain bills in full while your partner pays others.

Alternatively, you may split everything 50-50. Either method is acceptable, but you may want to add a covering note to your financial statement before sending it to your creditors, to explain how you have worked the figures out.

If someone you have borrowed money from is putting lots of pressure on you to pay, consider whether that person is operating legally. Lending money to make a profit is a business activity and people who do it legally must have a consumer credit licence. Unlicensed lenders known as ‘loan sharks’ often use threats, violence or intimidation to make people pay. If this is happening to you, you can get help and support by reporting it. Contact the Illegal Money Lending Team. See www.gov.uk/report-loan-shark.

My Money Steps is sponsored and developed in partnership with Barclaycard. The service is independent from Barclaycard and is maintained by debt advice experts at National Debtline and Business Debtline.

My Money Steps will ask you to set up a password for your account. This will ensure that your account is secure.

Passwords must follow the rules below:

•Must be a minimum of 8 characters long
•Must be a mixture of letters and numbers
•Must be a mixture of upper and lower case characters
•Must not contain sequences, i.e. 123
•Must not contain any personal information, i.e. Forename